


Touch by scarredsodeep

by scarredsodeep



Category: AFI
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, High School, M/M, Vignette, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-25
Updated: 2011-08-25
Packaged: 2018-03-05 00:04:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3097541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scarredsodeep/pseuds/scarredsodeep
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A hot, hazy summer day; unrequited, baseball, and manslaughter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Touch by scarredsodeep

**Author's Note:**

> This spilled out when I was at work the other day. It was meant to be heavily texture-based, very tactile reading, and really focus on the savagery of adolescence. I don't think I quite succeeded in my original goals, so consider it a work in progress, but in the meantime, I hope you enjoy it.

The words buzz against his lips, unsaid, unsaid. He squirms in his seat uncomfortably, his friend’s hot skin brushing his arm, standing the hairs on end. Adam is absorbed utterly in rewrapping the grip of his favorite bat. Hunter is absorbed utterly in biting his tongue.

Adam’s worn t-shirt hugs his body closely, revealing muscles that hadn’t been half made last summer. It is a new body, a man’s body, replacing the transitioning youth he has been the past few years. Hunter looks away. At times like this the smell of him is almost too much, like salt and sun and sweat, like wood and grass and life. The knees of his jeans are torn and grass-stained. His sneakers flake with dry red mud. Before them, the baseball diamond is vast and empty, unmanned bases streaked with dust. The bleachers creak beneath his weight as Hunter stands suddenly, feigning great interest in the chain-link fence between him and the player’s bench. The rust gives beneath his fingers, sharp and dry. He crumbles it to dust.

Today is perfect. Adam tears the grip tape with his teeth and tucks the end tenderly into place. He surveys his work and gives a grunt of approval, swinging the bat in hand as he saunters to the plate.

Hunter cannot take his eyes from the lean, easy lines of Adam’s motion. It all looks so natural—simple as breathing. But just the sight of it takes the breath from Hunter’s lungs.

“Move it, Burgan,” Adam calls from the plate, ruffling his dark hair with one hand. With the other, he swings his bat idly, tracing circles in the red dirt.

Hunter does not need to be asked twice. He jogs out to the mound, heart thumping against his ribs as the bucket of balls against his leg. He isn’t much use at sports, but years of summers as Adam’s companion has groomed him into a pitching machine of mechanical precision. He is likely poor comparison to a real pitcher, or even a batting cage, but if Adam thinks so he never says.

Hunter starts with an easy lob to loosen them both up. There is a rhythm to it, pitching, a call-and-answer that he slips into like going home. He throws and Adam answers, bat cracking and leather whistling through the air, unheeded past the point of connection, unpursued. As his arm warms he begins to throw harder, faster, adding different spins and difficult curves. Sweat begins to bead on the back of Hunter’s neck. Adam’s curls darken with moisture in answer. The repetitive motion is like a trance—stretch for a ball, couch it on his hip, wind up, release. Heat spreads through his shoulder and the motions become fluid as Adam’s, and he lets his mind drift away from the scuffed leather and stitches in his hand and towards his friend. Face flushed and dotted with sweat, he shines with the same grace that flows through Hunter. His arm never tires. He has not missed a pitch. Taking the cue, Hunter begins to throw harder yet, high and low and curved, and though he can feel the strength of the throws, see the way they swerve viciously through the air, Adam has found the rhythm too. Today is a perfect day. Adam doesn’t miss a ball. Hunter’s ears ring with the crack of the bat. The sweat is running now, trickling down his sunburnt neck. The blisters on his hand open up and the August gold beats down on him, the whole world reduced to this: the ball, the bat, the boy. The heat is incredible. They are a perfect machine, they two. No matter what Hunter throws, Adam cannot miss. Their rhythm is unstoppable.

And look at him. The sweat on his face, the red halo of kicked-up dirt blowing out around him. His face, set with such determination, his gaze loose and relaxed in the way of perfect concentration, perfect bliss. Hunter knows Adam does not see him. Hunter knows Adam only sees the ball.

The bucket is almost empty. His knuckles brush the bottom. They are down to three balls, two. The last ball tingles in his hand. He flexes his fingers around it. It feels as if the whole day is wrapped up in this, the last ball, thrumming with potential, with the climbing spike of mutual heartbeats. If Adam hits this one, they will become gods. Hunter is sure of it.

Choked by prognostication, Hunter couches the ball at his hip, takes a breath, and lets fly. His arm extends millimeter by millimeter; time slows down as the leather uncurls from his fingertips, vibrating. The ball is spinning, curving out to the right, a strike if he’s ever seen one.

But the bat connects. Adam swings a low, impossible angle. The ball skims over the surface of the wood but Adam works the bat like it is a part of himself. There is a crack and ball, bat part suddenly, the latter twisting away into the air, soaring, disappearing into the fat, hot sun. It is, without question, a home run. Adam lets out a whoop and throws his arms up, bat breaking from him and skidding in the dirt.

“Perfect game!” Adam hoots, embarking on a victory lap around the diamond. Hunter feels a silly grin on his face as he exhales at last, the building tension of their rhythm spilling over into giddiness. He stands for a moment, high on the mound grinning stupidly at Adam. Adam jogs past, grinning back.

Today is perfect. They collect the balls together, Hunter carrying the bucket while Adam chatters happily about the varsity team and how far out some of the balls landed. “The benefits of summer training,” Adam says sagely as they hunt the last ball, beyond the outfield and over the fence. He shoves Hunter affectionately. “What would I do without you?”

Hunter is like to overflow with warmth. All he can do is smile dumbly, all teeth, pleased with himself. Adam shoves him again. They are kings. Adam helps him carry the bucket back to the mound. It bangs against their legs, awkward between them, impossibly heavy. Hunter does not mind. Adam’s hand presses against his, side by side on the handle. He pretends it is intentional and feels himself begin to blush. They set the bucket down on an angle, spilling half the balls. Adam laughs as they scoop them back into the bucket, the sound of it shooting straight down Hunter’s spine. Hunter is kneeling to one side when Adam leans down to drop a ball—their knuckles brush even as their eyes meet, a sober, electric moment, and Hunter breaks out in goosebumps. Adam’s smile is crooked and almost shy as he straightens up and brushes his hands on his pants. Hunter’s face is aflame, but he feels good. The cicadas fill the air with a throbbing buzz and it sounds like potential, like everything the moment might be—like that ball felt in his hand, before he threw it.

Adam keeps his head ducked as he jogs back to the plate. Hunter rolls his shoulder in the socket. It is already tightening up and beginning to ache. Adam does this almost every day, Hunter knows. He must always be sore. For his part, Hunter languishes at boarding school all year. He could play tennis, but his only athletic skill is pitching, so he doesn’t do much of anything. Summers are much the same, except for the days Adam comes calling. Those are the days he comes alive.

Adam affects a comical batter’s stance, bending at the knees and waggling his ass in the air. He hocks up a truly vile gob of spit, turning dust into mud at his feet. Hunter isn’t going to screw around this time with warm-up throws.

Adam is expecting a gentle lob, right down the line. He is not prepared for the veering fastball Hunter whips out. The ball thunks into the backstop while he’s still mid-swing. Hunter laughs aloud. The spell is broken, that taut line between them snapped, but beating Adam feels good too. Today is perfect—unspoilable.

Adam scowls, but there’re no teeth to it. “You cheated,” he accuses good-naturedly. “You always open with an underhand.”

Hunter raises his eyebrows and drawls, “This ain’t softball, son,” in his best Southern accent. He stomach tightens with happiness when Adam laughs, shaking his head.

“That throwing arm is the only reason I keep you around,” Adam says, and Hunter flushes pink at the compliment. He hides his pleasure and embarrassment by ducking down for the next ball, coming back up with an exaggerated wind-up and a silly stance, like a pitcher in a cartoon. But as he goes to release it a voice carries across the field, familiar and repulsive to Hunter’s ears.

“Hey, Billy Idol! Show us what you’ve got!” the boy calls across the field, winding his fingers through the fence behind the batter’s box. Hunter fumbles the ball and it drops into the dirt, useless. He can feel his face flaming to the tips of his bleached hair. The laughter and happiness and grace from the previous hour are ripped away from him, and he is only Hunter Burgan again: awkward, graceless, and sad.

When the ball hits the dirt the boys beyond the fence erupt into derisive laughter. They are boys from his neighborhood, and have known no greater pleasure than tormenting him throughout the summers and winter breaks of his young life. Every time he comes home, he hopes it will be different. Sometimes he almost believes it. It never is. He has been called names, hit with rocks, hit with sticks, hit with hands and feet and elbows and knees, spat upon, relieved of his pocket money more times than he can count, and once, when he was younger, forced to eat mud. That summer—he was eight—he hadn’t left the house again for a week straight, broken only by his mother dragging him to the doctor when he refused to go out the door even after she’d exhausted every threat she knew.

They are not his favorite people.

To his knowledge, Hunter has never wronged the three boys on the other side of the fence, nor any of the others in their pack. Even when he was small, he was happy to share his toys with them, long after it became apparent they were only interested in stealing or breaking them. As he grew older, his mother persisted in arranging playdates, from which he would always come home bruised. Now hiding indoors, out of sight, is all he can do. He rarely goes out alone. He has always thought he’d be safe with Adam. Adam is bigger than they are. But he isn’t bigger than all three.

The three saunter past the players’ bench and onto the diamond, causing Hunter’s empty hands to contract into useless fists. Adam has turned to watch their approach, but remains silent, bat resting on his shoulder. Hunter wonders if he knows them. He probably does; they all go to the same school. For a brief moment, when they exchange nods with Adam, Hunter is clutched with the terror that they are actually Adam’s _friends_. But Adam’s nod is stiff and cool, and Hunter relaxes, if only a little. Three to one are bad odds; four to one are suicidal.

The other boys lean against the fence, keeping their distance, but the biggest approaches Hunter. “C’mon, cunt,” he spits. “I wanna see you pitch. Where you been all summer? We missed you.” His grin is terrible and brown, to match his tobacco-thick spit. Hunter hopes he gets cancer of the mouth.

Adam still stands at a distance, watching. As the big one comes closer, the others push off from the fence, advancing. Hunter feels cold, clammy, sick. Why couldn’t they have waited til he was alone? They could have beat him then, easy. Why’d they have to come when he was with Adam? When he had so much to lose?

“Pitch the ball, I said,” the big one says and, trembling in spite of himself, Hunter reaches down for a ball. He doesn’t dare take his eyes off the enemy, so he fumbles, missing the bucket twice before finally closing his hand on a ball. He picks it up, cold sweat prickling his back, and wonders what to do. His minds races, but in circles, into walls.

“Swing, batta batta, swing!” one of the lackeys calls. The other one hoots with laughter. It is a much crueler sound than the laughter he and Adam shared what feels like a lifetime ago. Adam does not move. Hunter doesn’t either. The ball hangs limp at his side, inside his fist. The lackeys come up on either side of him, boxing him in. “What’s wrong with you, blondie?” the big one asks. The lackeys echo. “Let’s see what you got!”

“I don’t—I don’t want to,” Hunter stammers weakly. It is too late, though. The big one plants a hand on either of his shoulders and shoves. It is not playful. Hunter stumbles back, into one of the others, who pushes him forward again. It is all he can do to keep his footing. It is all he can do not to cry. Helpless, helpless. Why won’t they just get it over with?

And then Adam speaks. “Leave him alone,” he calls out sharply, still frozen on the plate. His voice holds motion enough; it is thick with anger.

“Fuck you, buddy,” the big one laughs. “We just wanna see him throw the ball. Why you hanging out with this little fag, anyway? Don’t you know any real boys?”

The circle around him is only getting tighter. Hunter can’t quite breathe. The ball in his hand grows slick. _Fag_. There, they’d said it. It was done. “I don’t want to!” Hunter protests again, but his moment of strength and resistance is swallowed up by his suddenly squeaky voice, cracking again at the ripe old age of fifteen, betraying him for once and all.

Guffawing, he is shoved again. This time he can’t tell where it’s coming from. “Get away from him!” Adam yells, louder this time, angrier, closer, but Hunter loses his footing as the hands come from all directions and feet swipe at his ankles. He is on the ground and can see nothing but dirt and sneakers. The ball rolls from his hand as the first sneaker slams into his ribs. He scrabbles in the dirt, frantic, trying blind to dodge kicks from all sides.

This time Adam’s voice is a wordless roar. Hunter rolls into a ball, protecting his stomach with his knees, and looks up through dust and tears to see Adam come at one of the lackeys fist-first. He is bigger than each of them, but not bigger than all three. They are on him in an instant, quicker than Hunter can think or move or speak. Like hyenas, they surround him, swiping with fists and feet, trying to get him on the ground. In the middle of them all Adam is a whirlwind, lashing out with every limb, shoulders and elbows and knees, fists and teeth and fury. Not knowing what else to do, Hunter picks up the ball again. They are shouting and laughing now, winning, catcalling with bravado. “Sorry, man, didn’t realize he was your girlfriend!” one of the lackeys squeals, and it is that one Hunter closes on. He squeezes the ball, feeling again the potential in it, the fissile energy churning into motion, and without thinking bashes it into the lackey’s skull.

It is a solid hit. The boy reels, clutching his bright red temple, soon to be a bruise. “Fucking faggot!” he bellows, and the big one turns back to Hunter. “Mother _fuck_ er,” he hisses through his teeth, and his fist lands square in Hunter’s gut, doubling him over. The second fist connects with his mouth, which immediately fills with blood. It is, Hunter knows, all over.

He is being kicked savagely in the ribs and crumpling to the ground when Adam comes again, kicking the third boy away from him in a staggering tangle. “GET AWAY FROM HIM!” he bellows, charging into the fray. Hunter doesn’t even notice the bat, so right and natural in his hand, until it smashes down at the big one’s head. The first hit lays him out. He stumbles blindly, and drops to his knees.

The second bursts his head open.

The bat collides and more, sinking sickly _in_ , and even the cicadas are silent so that the ringing CRACK is the only sound. It seems to echo all across the empty field. Adam stands over the boy’s body, the skull dented in and flooded with pink ooze, blood and brains mixing with the red, red dirt, dripping from the end of Adam’s bat. Hunter is on his knees, looking down at the splatter, the spray. The crushed-in thing—not like a melon so much as soup in a bread bowl—and he should retch, he should reel away and retch, but all he can do is stare down at it. It is nauseating, it is eldritch, it is terrible, but it’s also fascinating. It’s also the most beautiful thing he has ever seen, because Adam swinging that bat is the most beautiful thing anyone’s ever done.

Hours pass, or seem to. The other boys flee the scene, cursing and shitting themselves, one still holding the purple blotch on his head where Hunter struck him. At some point Adam reaches down and helps Hunter to his feet, and they loom together over the heap of runny meat. They just stand, staring. Eventually the last convulsions have ceased and the smell of his bowels releasing fills the air. He doesn’t look human, really, this broken body, this broken boy. They stand there like savages and stare, horrified by what they’ve done but also viscerally proud of it, the clean-cut dominance in the action, the finality of the gesture. Hunter feels curiously hollow. He does not feel remorse. How many times has he wished this boy dead? There is no point in running. There is nothing to do but wait.

Adam doesn’t let go of his hand, not even when the cops show up. They are bathed in red and blue, they two, and Adam slides into the backseat, leather sticking to his legs. Only when the officer steps between them and eases Adam’s head into the car do their hands slip apart. Hunter can feel the parting squeeze for hours, tracing over the marks lightly with his own hand, imagining.

“You didn’t—didn’t have to do that,” Hunter had said, in a breath, when he was able to say anything at all. It had been dusk by then, the sun slipping down, bleeding out the sky. He is distantly aware that, at seventeen, Adam can be tried as an adult, if the prosecution really wants it, or if the jury is really mortified by the second swing, the swing after the battle was won. He assumes there will be prosecutors and juries and judges all in due time, and rightly so. But he isn’t worried. He doesn’t offer to take the bat, the blame. Understands that it would be an insult to even suggest it. Instead he just enjoys the feel of Adam’s fingers through his, and watches with intent curiosity as the blood stops spreading, begins congealing instead. Still, each time a fly lands, hungry and ripe with eggs, Hunter crouches on one knee and shoos it away.

“For you I’d do anything,” Adam whispered back.  
Even as he watches the squad cars roll away over flattened green grass, even as plainclothes tie off the baseball diamond with yellow tape and forensic scientists begin to collect the bloody mud and the detectives advance on him, armed with questions, the words buzz against his lips. Unsaid, unsaid. So Hunter says them: “I love you, Adam.”

And today is perfect.

End Notes:

I don't Hundam often, so please, let me know what you think! If you can help me improve this piece at all or if you just have something to say, I would love to hear it.

  
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. All publicly recognizable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.

This story archived at <http://www.afislash.com/viewstory.php?sid=8733>  



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